One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors:
Plato

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

So, what now?

The Liberals lost the by-election in Outrement (Oh the horror, THE HORROR!) so what do they do now?If Liberals were smart they would do a calm assessment of what happened in Outrement. They would suppress the desire the cast blame and instead seek to find what errors were made so that they could avoid them the next time.If Liberals were really smart they would put the loss in perspective and minmize any damage the loss will cause. One truism of life is people will often make a bad situation much worse by overreacting to it.If Liberals were smart they would use this setback to rally around the Party leadership and to firm up their resolve to refocus their efforts on the real opponent of the Liberal Party, namely the Conservative government.If Liberals were really smart they would realize that it has only been 10 months since Stephane Dion won the Liberal leadership. Any open revolt against him, whether it lead to his ouster or not, would destroy any chance of the Liberals winning the next election and it would hamstring the Party for the following one, which will probably be in 2012. By then the ages of the erstwhile front runners to replace Mr. Dion (Iggy and Rae) would be an issue.If Liberals were smart they would realize that the Conservative government has demonstrated that, despite 20 months of constant campaigning, using honourable and underhanded methods, they have been utterly incapable of consistently lifting their level of support above the minority government level.If Liberals were really smart they would realize that they hold the future of the Conservative government in their hands. It is their actions over the next few months that will determine whether the Conservative government goes down to defeat or whether they achieve their much coveted majority. In other words, the Conservatives need help from the Liberals to achieve their electoral ends and it is up to Liberals to deny them that help. If Liberals were smart they would realize that all things in politics are temporary. Nothing stays the same and one bad week will not make or break a Party's fortune, unless that Party's reaction causes the bad week to become a bad month, a bad quarter and/or a bad year.If Liberals were really smart they would remember that as late as Christmas 2005, the Conservative Party was polling in the mid-teens in Quebec and most pundits had written them off in that province. They would also remember that in three straight elections those very same pundits did not give Jean Chretien much of a chance in his home province and really smart Liberals should be able to figure out how those elections turned out.Now the big question is, how many smart and really smart Liberals are out there?

1 Comments:

The big one, right now, is that the Liberals have to improve their ground game.

They have to ask themselves, in each riding, the following questions:

-- how many people are available to canvass the riding?

-- how many people can staff the phones to call the voters' list?

-- what's in the budget for campaign literature and lawn signs?

-- what does the candidate have to offer? (Note: not the party or the leadership, the actual candidate who's running in the riding. You have to assume that coattails won't exist in the next election.)

The thing is, it's really up to each individual riding association to engage their local voters and get them thinking about their representation. The travails of Dion, Harper, etc. are just water cooler talk. You want something to discuss at the Tim Horton's table.